Top 77 Isaac Newton Quotes

What goes up must come down.

Plato is my friend; Aristotle is my friend, but my greatest friend is truth.

Are not rays of light very small bodies emitted from shining substances?

We build too many walls and not enough bridges.

This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.

A man may imagine things that are false, but he can only understand things that are true, for if the things be false, the apprehension of them is not understanding.

The word ‘God’ usually signifies ‘Lord’, but every lord is not a God. It is the dominion of a spiritual being which constitutes a God: a true, supreme, or imaginary dominion makes a true, supreme, or imaginary God.

It may be that there is no such thing as an equable motion, whereby time may be accurately measured. All motions may be accelerated or retarded, but the true, or equable, progress of absolute time is liable to no change.

Resistance is usually ascribed to bodies at rest, and impulse to those in motion, but motion and rest, as commonly conceived, are only relatively distinguished; nor are those bodies always truly at rest, which commonly are taken to be so.

Just as the system of the sun, planets and comets is put in motion by the forces of gravity, and its parts persist in their motions, so the smaller systems of bodies also seem to be set in motion by other forces and their particles to be variously moved in relation to each other and, especially, by the electric force.

Errors are not in the art but in the artificers.

God in the beginning formed matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, movable particles, of such sizes and figures, and with such other properties, and in such proportion to space, as most conduced to the end for which he formed them.

The Ignis Fatuus is a vapor shining without heat.

Absolute space, in its own nature, without regard to anything external, remains always similar and immovable. Relative space is some movable dimension or measure of the absolute spaces, which our senses determine by its position to bodies, and which is vulgarly taken for immovable space.

In the beginning of the year 1665, I found the method of approximating series and the rule for reducing any dignity of any binomial into such a series.

Genius is patience.

If I have done the public any service, it is due to my patient thought.

That the divided but contiguous particles of bodies may be separated from one another is a matter of observation; and, in the particles that remain undivided, our minds are able to distinguish yet lesser parts, as is mathematically demonstrated.

To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age. ‘Tis much better to do a little with certainty & leave the rest for others that come after you.

Nothing can be divided into more parts than it can possibly be constituted of. But matter (i.e. finite) cannot be constituted of infinite parts.

I have explained the phenomena of the heavens and of our sea by the force of gravity, but I have not yet assigned a cause to gravity.

The motions of the comets are exceedingly regular, and they observe the same laws as the motions of the planets, but they differ from the motions of vortices in every particular and are often contrary to them.

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

Infinites, when considered absolutely without any restriction or limitation, are neither equal nor unequal, nor have any certain proportion one to another, and therefore, the principle that all infinites are equal is a precarious one.

The smaller the planets are, they are, other things being equal, of so much the greater density; for so the powers of gravity on their several surfaces come nearer to equality. They are likewise, other things being equal, of the greater density, as they are nearer to the sun.

Nothing can be divided into more parts than it can possibly be constituted of. But matter (i.e. finite) cannot be constituted of infinite parts.

The centre of the system of the world is immovable.

Atheism is so senseless. When I look at the solar system, I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light. This did not happen by chance.

God is the same God, always and everywhere. He is omnipresent not virtually only, but also substantially, for virtue cannot subsist without substance.

Resistance is usually ascribed to bodies at rest, and impulse to those in motion, but motion and rest, as commonly conceived, are only relatively distinguished; nor are those bodies always truly at rest, which commonly are taken to be so.

Absolute space, in its own nature, without regard to anything external, remains always similar and immovable. Relative space is some movable dimension or measure of the absolute spaces, which our senses determine by its position to bodies, and which is vulgarly taken for immovable space.

To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age. ‘Tis much better to do a little with certainty & leave the rest for others that come after you.

If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.

The proper method for inquiring after the properties of things is to deduce them from experiments.

The centre of the system of the world is immovable.

If anyone offers conjectures about the truth of things from the mere possibility of hypotheses, I do not see by what stipulation anything certain can be determined in any science, since one or another set of hypotheses may always be devised which will appear to supply new difficulties.

Errors are not in the art but in the artificers.

The proper method for inquiring after the properties of things is to deduce them from experiments.

We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.

Opposite to godliness is atheism in profession, and idolatry in practice. Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind, that it never had many professors.

I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by those who were inspired. I study the Bible daily.

My powers are ordinary. Only my application brings me success.

Gravity may put the planets into motion, but without the divine Power, it could never put them into such a circulating motion as they have about the Sun; and therefore, for this as well as other reasons, I am compelled to ascribe the frame of this System to an intelligent Agent.

God is the same God, always and everywhere. He is omnipresent not virtually only, but also substantially, for virtue cannot subsist without substance.

In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God’s existence.

We build too many walls and not enough bridges.

Gravity must be caused by an Agent acting constantly according to certain laws, but whether this Agent be material or immaterial I have left to the consideration of my readers.

What goes up must come down.

Religion and philosophy are to be preserved distinct. We are not to introduce divine revelations into philosophy, nor philosophical opinions into religion.

My powers are ordinary. Only my application brings me success.

If the experiments which I urge be defective, it cannot be difficult to show the defects; but if valid, then by proving the theory, they must render all objections invalid.

Opposite to godliness is atheism in profession, and idolatry in practice. Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind, that it never had many professors.

It is the weight, not numbers of experiments that is to be regarded.

Hypotheses should be subservient only in explaining the properties of things but not assumed in determining them, unless so far as they may furnish experiments.

I there represent that I sent notice of my method to Mr. Leibnitz before he sent notice of his method to me, and left him to make it appear that he had found his method before the date of my letter.

I do not love to be printed on every occasion, much less to be dunned and teased by foreigners about mathematical things or to be thought by our own people to be trifling away my time about them when I should be about the king’s business.

The same law takes place in a system, consisting of many bodies, as in one single body, with regard to their persevering in their state of motion or of rest. For the progressive motion, whether of one single body or of a whole system of bodies, is always to be estimated from the motion of the center of gravity.

If I have done the public any service, it is due to my patient thought.

To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction.

It is indeed a matter of great difficulty to discover, and effectually to distinguish, the true motions of particular bodies from the apparent because the parts of that immovable space, in which those motions are performed, do by no means come under the observation of our senses.